Microsoft has three major feature sets that they are advancing with SQL Server 2014 (SQL2014). One is called “Mission Critical Performance.” Microsoft wants to stake out this ground not only as performance enhancements in the relational engine, but also those features which support better data availability, performance, security, and ...

Today I want to bring to your attention an issue in the SQL Server Management Studio 2012 restore GUI. In many ways the new restore dialog is nicer than the old one, with new features and added convenience – but, as is always the Achilles heel of GUI tools like this, if you don’t know what’s really going on it can bite you. I’m not sure what to ...

In foreground, attendee makes dreaded ''shoot myself'' hand sign to the speaker.I was just telling the good people of Charlotte about how they (and how YOU) need to read all things by Paul Randal (blog | twitter), except for all of his cheesy romance novels like Caress and Conquer written under the nom de plum of ...

This is part II of two Scandalous posts. Watch, mouth agape, as I run with scissors, right up against prevailing wisdom! Unfollow me now, before it’s too late!
Here’s the thing. There are two really outstanding posts out there on the ‘tubez that explain in vivid detail the problems with sending compressed data into a de-duplicating appliance. And ...

Or, How Mirroring Off-Site Saved my #Bacon
My company does most things right. Our management is very supportive, listens and generally funds the technology that makes sense for the best interest of the organization. We have good redundancy, HA and disaster recovery in place that fit our objectives. Still, as they say, bad things can happen to ...

Recently we've had to interview some SQL Server DBA candidates for our team, and we were looking for the type of open-ended technical questions that would draw out interviewees and let us get a sense of their thought process. A surprisingly simple question came up that seems to work well - it makes the candidate think through and explain ...